The Apostle Paul tells us that if we are “in Christ,” we are “a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (II Corinthians 5:17). Some Bible commentaries put forth the idea that to be “in Christ” is to be “united” with Christ. Christ Jesus, whose real, spiritual selfhood was the Christ, spent his ministry proving that God’s spiritual, eternal nature and power are ever present to save man from sin, disease, and death. When we unite with Christ, Truth, we look to God, Spirit, instead of the belief in a material past for our understanding of reality. As we do, we discover a new, truer sense of our identity as defined by God, not by our human history.
Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer of Christian Science, writes in Retrospection and Introspection, “It is well to know, dear reader, that our material, mortal history is but the record of dreams, not of man’s real existence, and the dream has no place in the Science of being” (p. 21), and later, “The human history needs to be revised, and the material record expunged” (p. 22).
Is this what Paul was talking about? Is it really possible to expunge, or turn away from, the belief in an identity based in material history?
